The
Seerveld Gallery presents:
Excess of Joy: an exhibition of new work by Edra Soto
Exhibition
dates: February
27 – March 26, 2014
Opening
reception: February
27, 6-8pm (artist talk at 6pm)
The work of Edra Soto strives to form a parallel between the
basic materials that the artist uses and her Caribbean, African, Spanish and
Anglo-American influences and heritage. Her work tends to draw upon childhood
memories and her religious upbringing. Soto aims to create a space of
reflection by bringing together a rich environment of images and shapes that
were made in a simple and basic manner.
Along these lines, Excess of Joy depicts portraits
as masks, influenced by African and Caribbean imagery. Culturally omnipresent,
masks possess the qualities of being protective archetypal devices for either a
living organism or a myth. Soto amplifies her moral and emotional concerns by
confectioning an image that is made with simple materials: gouache, graphite
and paper, and influenced by the symmetrical architecture predominant in
ecclesiastic art that the artist frequented during her formative years.
Excess of Joy brings together Soto’s latest drawings and
a sound piece: respectively, dual comedy portraits, followed by the sound of
Soto’s laughter coming from a record player. Produced in an edition of 250, the
artist invites the audience to play the 7” record from a turntable while
viewing the exhibition.
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